


Of Hopeless Romantics and Hopeful Romances

by orphan_account



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Asexuality, F/F, Prompt Fic, Xing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 06:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1256785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Although the pale-powdered faces of the nobility of Xing often contort into disapproval manifested at the sight of public affection, May Chang has learned of what comes, of what springs forward with romance. As a child she lay curled up with stories of ancient romance—of maidens sacrificing themselves for their true loves; of lords sweeping princesses from their feet amid great festivals scented of the sweet peach; of hidden relationships concealed behind warm smiles and careful gestures beneath the golden glow of the sun, and under sigil-stitched blankets and secret meeting-places beneath the silver shine of the moon—and though she could not understand the smouldering sweat-slicked brows and trembling wet-bruised lips of the lovers, descriptions painted over and over across the ballads’ lines, May remembered her childhood and her youth.</p>
<p>In time, she would raise a fan to her mouth and gaze longingly at some handsome young man with ebony hair pulled into a taut topknot, with eyes the dark grey  of the magpie bridge spanning the rift of the heavens. Surely. In time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Hopeless Romantics and Hopeful Romances

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "may chang as ace? u can write may fan or almei i don't care".
> 
> Wowie I promise not to write something May Chang/Lan Fan tomorrow. I'm still getting the last of my feels for these two out.
> 
> Unbeta'd/unedited/etc. Enjoy!

Although the pale-powdered faces of the nobility of Xing often contort into disapproval manifested at the sight of public affection, May Chang has learned of what comes, of what springs forward with romance. As a child she lay curled up with stories of ancient romance—of maidens sacrificing themselves for their true loves; of lords sweeping princesses from their feet amid great festivals scented of the sweet peach; of hidden relationships concealed behind warm smiles and careful gestures beneath the golden glow of the sun, and under sigil-stitched blankets and secret meeting-places beneath the silver shine of the moon—and though she could not understand the smouldering sweat-slicked brows and trembling wet-bruised lips of the lovers, descriptions painted over and over across the ballads’ lines, May remembered her childhood and her youth.

In time, she would raise a fan to her mouth and gaze longingly at some handsome young man with ebony hair pulled into a taut topknot, with eyes the dark grey  of the magpie bridge spanning the rift of the heavens. Surely. In time.

Or so she thought.

Turning her back to the rising sun, May left for Amestris at the age of twelve. Forced to discard the soft linen that clothed her girlhood in favour of imperial robes yet several sizes too large, she traipsed about a country with the tautness of her mind and body set to save her Clan, whatever that took. And because her romances bid her to discover her prince, she caught upon the tale of the golden man, of the immortal man, who wore his hair long and carried his head high. Who could sweep her from the feet amid flowers and seasides and declarations of love that somehow never strayed to what lay beneath her pink and violet cloak.

And so, when her first dream failed her—for that lack of his height, she said aloud; for that lack of a spark, she thought privately—she moved on immediately with the wheeling determination of the Chang: If the first route closes, then the second opens. Or she’ll open it with an application of the Dragon’s Pulse.

With Alphonse, with a body of steel that vibrated with his voice and glimmered with his soul, she felt a thread of safety coil about their forms. Draw them together. A red string of fate, she told herself, the same hue as the philosopher’s stone.

Two years after her return to her homeland, to her Clan, to her Xing, May had seen the curving terraces of her youth give way to the glittering horizon of tomorrow blooming just beyond her vision. Emperor Ling Yao wrote off one law after another, as he and May Chang and that vassal of his, Lan Fan, travelled the countryside—no matter the law regarding the Emperor staying trapped within the gilded cage of the Forbidden City—and spoke in secret of that which required alterations and that which could remain bound up in the heart and soul of the Xingese people.

Alphonse appeared one day on her doorstep, dishevelled and dusty and grinning like the earth could split beneath his feet and his smile would not budge. Like a whirlwind he breezed into her life to set up shop. She laughed with him and studied alkahestry with him and shared her tea, her traditions, her life with him. Until he spread his fingers over hers. Until he asked her, carefully, if he could kiss her, and her heart unwound like he’d ripped a thread loose from her robe only for the silk to fall entirely apart in her hands.

From the abrupt tension in her hardened grip, from the pained expression crossing her features, from the _chi_ he had learned to read, Alphonse understood, somehow. “We can still be friends, right?” he whispered as he cautiously drew his arms around her to pull her into a warm embrace, like she were hugging the heated sun.

“Of course. I don’t want to lose you.”

And so she didn’t. Each summer he would arrive at her doorstep to pad after her as a dog pads after his companion.

For a time she wondered if she simply didn’t have it within her heart to love. If the meagre space between the walls of her heart left no space for words, for feelings, for thought. Whichever prince or lord or even common boy she looked at, she found little attraction. Whereas the other women her age, and a few of the men and others, would swoon over the supposedly gorgeous boys who came and went through the court or through her travels amidst the lands of Xing, she would walk onwards to the end of the path streaming beyond her feet. Her people, May needed. Some romance, she did not.

But May found her gaze straying to the determined retainer of the Emperor’s. At her straight-spine sense of honour. At her dog’s loyalty, though she were decidedly not a dog. At the handsome young woman with ebony hair pulled into a taut topknot, with eyes the dark grey  of the magpie bridge spanning the rift of the heavens.

In the midst of the Emperor’s festival, a celebration of the new year stretching before them with its rosy-tinted glory, May bowed low to the vassal who stood rigidly at Ling’s side. Requested a dance. Lan Fan’s pupils darted to the corner of her vision; May followed her line to sight to Ling, chatting up the Princet of the Feng. “If you’ll allow me the honour, Your Majesty, I would like to borrow your retainer for a dance.”

Ling smirked mischievously. “Lan Fan, if you’d like, you’re free to go.”

Lan Fan’s mouth opened and closed rapidly, ultimately deciding to hang like some alkahetrist had tranquilised her jaw muscles. Yet May took the woman’s hands in hers. The warm flesh in her left. The cool automail in her right.

Murmured instructions into her ear. Held her at arm’s length.

_Flew_.

By the end of their inspired number the party members had gathered into a circle around them. With their gazes locked upon one another, with their fingers intertwined tightly for that blessed bridge between them, with their hair sweat-slicked to their brows and their lips wet-parted for breaths—and May realised that she’d heard all of this somewhere before.

In love with Lan Fan. The thought warmed her as it swirled around her mind and pushed aside the caved-in walls of her heart.

“Lan Fan,” she breathed.

Lan Fan smiled. “May.”

By the time Alphonse arrived for the summer, Ling had taken to inviting May to his quarters even more often than usual to allow the women time together: picnics and horse rides and simply biding time between grins and giggles and general twitterpation. As an added effect, with a dedicated alkahetrist out and about, the nobles grew afraid of the Emperor’s might. The reformation laws rolled swift and sure over the nation. The celebrations in Xijing responded appropriately: Instead of great festivals of extreme extravagance, he threw gatherings and comings-together, focused not on power but on _people_.

Alphonse joined Ling in his constant teasing of the lovebirds—”Birds,” said Ling, “because Lan Fan’s still a Yao!”—and evidently the duo conspired specifically to somehow bring May and Lan Fan together in a single alcove, far removed from the watching eyes of the other partygoers.  Now. The two of them, in this secluded locale, the atmosphere palpable with a tension thick enough to slice with a kunai. The floor beneath their feet quivers with the noise of the orchestra.

“May,” Lan Fan breathes.

May smiles, but her smile, for once, betrays her nerves. “Lan Fan.”

Tilting the princess’s chin up with her flesh hand, Lan Fan leans down. Presses her lips, cool and dry, to May’s, trembling faintly. “Are you all right?” Lan Fan whispers, her other hand hovering over May’s chest, the question lurking in her irises. Irises the dark grey of the coming storm.

May swallows and her throat burns. “Lan Fan—”

Within seconds Lan Fan has shifted to the opposite side of the alcove, has pressed her back against the wall, and May thinks she remembers this. With Alphonse.

Alphonse, her best friend. Her best _friend_. Because, perhaps, she doesn’t have it in her heart to love after all.

“I could leave,” says Lan Fan, staring determinedly at some point beyond May’s shoulder, “if you wish.”

Even prior to her finishing her words, the thought of Lan Fan leaving her, even for an instant, rips whole through May’s frame, shivering her limbs like autumn leaves and threatening to overturn her stomach entirely through her throat, and May knows that she does. Does have it in her heart to love.

Her fingers clasp Lan Fan’s wrist. “Don’t. _Please_.”

Lan Fan blinks. Slow. Contemplative. “We could talk.”

They talk. May explains, not quite what she _knows_ , but what she _understands_. While she speaks Lan Fan nods patiently on occasion, and when she falls silent Lan Fan stays quiet for what May fears to be an eternity.

Then Lan Fan wets her lips. Parts them. “I . . . I understand.” She kisses May again, gently, on the nose; May blushes. “You know what we’ll do?”

May offers a hesitant smile. “. . . ah, what?”

Yes, May has learned of what comes, of what springs forward with romance: “Only as much as you want to.” Lan Fan smiles. Crinkles the corners of her eyes. “And everything that makes you happy.”


End file.
